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Bass Drivers - Quickest / Best Way to Break In?

As a proud owner of new EgglestonWorks Andra I speakers, I am completely impressed and satisfied with their sound, from 63 Hz and up. In my room, they are amazingly live, dynamic, detailed but natural, very well balanced (as the frequency response shows (Rives CD, RS analog meter)), and the sense of acoustic space is just unbelievable.

But then there's the bass...I know the Dynaudio bass drivers (two 12" in each cabinet) take some time to break in. I have bearly any audible response below 50Hz; the response drops 15 to 20dB from reference (80dB) very quickly after 63Hz. When I crank up the volume on the 20Hz tone, I get the woofers moving, but the equivalent volume level would be around 95db at 1Khz. That's loud folks!

I tried respositioning the speakers closer together, to simulate a friend's setup, also Andra Is, and he's only down 3dB at 31Hz. No such luck for me, so I don't think it's a room thing, not for the lowest octave and a half range like this, so it must be break in, right? My bass drivers just don't seem to want to move that much at 80dB.

What would be the safest way (for the drivers and the simple low pass bass crossover). I assume that playing the 20Hz tone repeatedly may cause overheating of either? I guess I am impatient! I have about 50 hours on the speakers thus far (yeah, I know, that's nothing!).

Thanks!
1markr
undertow
1,032 posts
 
Sorry to intrude, but fact is I have had very similar things occur and after 300 hours I have had drivers that were very stiff all of a sudden open up and drop quite a bit in impact and octave range... However this is not the whole story, your room has incredible impact on the results, room acoustics will in fact start erasing some of the holes in frequency response, especiall the room loading factor that will give you the smooth / full / wooly even bloom your missing to gain back warmer and much more impactfull presentation.

I really doubt eggleston would ever dare ship a non-fully tested against the reference speaker on site product, this is the practice of all super hi end companies from my understanding.... Unless you have shipping damage or really badly matched equipment.
tvad
9,467 posts
 
I re-read my previous post and it requires some revision. Sorry, Mark.
...try swapping the L&R interconnects from your preamp to the Dodds to flip-flop the channels (in other words leave the ICs connected correctly at the preamp, but plug the left IC into the right Dodd and vice versa). If the problem switches from one speaker to the other, then you know the amp is the issue.
This should read, "then you know the amp is NOT the issue, and the problem is upstream."

If the problem does not flip-flop, then restore the ICs.
In this scenario, the amp IS the issue.

BTW, I know this is a frustrating problem and finding the answer is equally frustrating, but the problem and the solution will be found!
cytocycle
1,034 posts
 
It really sounds like you are sitting in a bass null, have you used the rives calculators? Have you moved around the room with the sound pressure meter.

The Rat Shack meter is not accurate at 20hz also, so I assume you are using the Rives Test disk to help compensate?
rlips
105 posts
 
I have had similar problems, and room placement and treatment was the answer.

I would move the speakers forward or back into the room by a couple of feet.
4est
507 posts
 
Have you considered that just the bass drivers, or just one of the bass drivers is out of phase. I've had that before from a 'high end manufacturer' and couldn't find the problem myself and had to send it back for repairs. I'd contact Eggleston and ask them for help- isn't that why we pay the big bucks?
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